Everyday, millions of people are searching Google or other search engines for everything from restaurants to therapists, book stores to airline tickets - and everything in between. Therefore there are millions of opportunities for businesses to appear ahead of competitors, achieving increased website traffic, and effectively converting search engine users to new customers. 

In short, SEO or Search Engine Optimization, is an umbrella term for several tactics used by business owners and digital marketers to help search engines better understand what their website has to offer. Search engines like Google have complex algorithms that help to organize the millions of search results into a ranked system of what it believes to be the most helpful to the user. This is not to be confused with paid search results, which usually appear above organic results. 

Everything from the words used in your website’s written content to the amount of times your website’s link appears on other sites will determine how your website ranks compared to competitors. So it’s important to at least learn the basics of SEO, because an effective SEO campaign, no matter how large or small, will improve the likelihood of attracting potential customers to your site. Here are 8 steps to help you on your way to launching your business’s SEO campaign. 

#1 Setup Your Site in Google Search Console

“Google Search Console” is a free service offered by Google where a website owner can receive direct feedback about important issues regarding their website such as broken pages and speed issues. Alongside Google Analytics, Search Console is an easy way to obtain valuable information about your website’s visitors and their behavior, specifically which pages visitors seem to be most interested in. 

With Search Console, you can learn how Google navigates your page and, most importantly, how users can discover the page of your website that they’re looking for. Use Search Console to submit updated content to the Google Index and monitor search performance trends by various categories like queries or countries. Although this may sound a little confusing, what’s important to know is that this Google service is a really useful resource that can communicate all types of information about your website’s performance so you can determine which changes, if any, should be made. 

Connecting a website to Search Console is the very first step of any SEO project. Google even offers free courses online to help you navigate Google Search Console, along with other Google services. 

#2 Create an XML Sitemap

Creating an XML Sitemap is an important way to ensure that Google knows about all your website’s pages. Think of a sitemap as a table of contents used by search engines to locate all your pages when a search query calls for certain content. In terms of Google, a sitemap clearly states which pages are the most relevant, important, and valuable in relation to certain keywords or phrases searched. You can also regularly update your sitemap to tell Google which pages are the most recently updated, so your freshest content is always prioritized. When a new page is added or an old one is removed, these changes can be directly fed to Google via your sitemap, speeding up the process of indexing your pages. 

Sitemaps are especially helpful if your site is large or has dynamic content. You can create a sitemap and submit it to your Google Search Console account to get feedback about the number of indexed pages on your site. For example, if there are any pages that are not indexed, you can immediately take action to fix this problem.   

#3 Conduct Keyword Research 

Keyword research is all about figuring out what your target audience of potential customers are searching for on the internet, and what type of competition exists among other companies with certain keywords and phrases. Without considering what your target audience is searching for on google and, more importantly, how they are searching for it, you are missing a crucial opportunity to optimize your content for maximum visibility. 

There are free and paid methods for conducting keyword research. Free methods would involve typing keywords into Google and taking note of which auto-suggest terms appear, as well as looking over the ‘people also ask’ and ‘related searches’ sections on the search results page. There’s even a free Google Chrome plugin called Keywords Everywhere which allows you to find additional keywords from an initial keyword, and show you keywords that a page or domain ranks for. Paid keyword research methods include tools like Google Keyword Planner if you currently have an active Google Ads Account, or software like SEMrush or Keyword Keg. 

Although these programs may have subtle differences in the tools they offer, they all more or less serve the same purpose: to identify which keywords and phrases are most popular, used most frequently, and most competitive. Understanding these factors will help you optimize your website for maximum clicks, and ultimately increase your ranking on Google or other search engines. 

#4 Optimize Your Metadata

You may not realize it, but when you search something on Google, most of the top results are giving you information about a specific page on a website that pertains to your query, and not just a preview of the website. What you are seeing is called a title tag and a meta description tag, and they are the two key factors of metadata optimization. 

If you want your website to rank for specific keywords and thus  increase  traffic from Google, you’ll want to optimize your metadata. With a unique title tag, you are telling search engines what keywords your website should be ranking for, thereby targeting the correct audience and increasing chances that people will click on your page. And with a unique and descriptive meta description containing a specific call-to-action, you can increase the click-through rate (CTR) to your site from the search engine results page (SERP). 

#5 Create High-Quality Content

Consider this scenario; Google has to decide which web page to recommend to a user searching a specific question. Both web pages have similar content, but the content on one of the pages features expert advice, unique copy, and clearly addresses the intent of the search query. In this case, Google will likely rank the latter page higher than the other page. This is explained in Google’s Page Quality Guidelines which is available to the public and should definitely be explored if you are concerned with improving your websites traffic and ranking on Google.  

Overall, the most important part of any website is the written content. If your site does not answer the questions that your target audience is likely to ask or does not explain procedures and services they are likely to search for, then Google won’t recommend it as a high-ranking result. This is because Google monitors how users interact with your content, and based on how long the user is on your page or if they continue their search after visiting your page, Google may determine that your content is unhelpful and won’t recommend it in the future. 

#6 Set Up a Google My Business Page

When you search on Google, you’ll often see a specific business show up with photos, their hours of operation, reviews, contact information, and more. This is a feature called Google My Business, and it’s important to optimize it just as you would the written content on your website. Having a Google My Business page is essential if you want users to easily find information about your business, whether that be a phone number, testimonials, or directions. Without this feature, your local competitors could have higher visibility causing you to lose out on opportunities to bring in new customers. 

According to recent studies, customers are 70% more likely to visit pages with a Google My Business listing, and that businesses with fully optimized GMB pages are twice as likely to earn trust from customers. This is likely due to the fact that this feature will prominently display customer reviews for users to see at first glance, adding credibility to your business. Google My Business listings can also be used to display frequently asked questions and even offer direct messaging between Google users and the business, without ever leaving Google.  

#7 Blog, Blog, Blog

According to Hubspot, as of 2020, companies that prioritize blogging could see a ROI of 13 times more than businesses that don’t. So what does this mean for you? It means that you better get blogging! 

In addition to your website’s optimized core content, blogs provide information about your company and industry that answer more questions and drive additional conversations which can ultimately interest a customer in a product or service they otherwise would not have considered. What’s interesting about blogging is that you have the freedom to deviate slightly further away from your specific niche and business’s services. And best of all, by blogging, you are steadily and consistently growing the size of your website. It’s important to keep in mind that the size of a site, or specifically the number of pages, is a major factor when it comes to ranking on Google.

In some cases, a well written blog post that sparks interest from readers who come across it can collect more traffic than the rest of your entire website. If you’re not convinced yet, just consider all the topics you could discuss in a blog post that just wouldn’t fit right on any other page of your website. The possibilities are nearly endless, so feel free to get creative. Check out our blog post on how to start a blog for your business.

#8 Claim Your Free Backlinks

Backlinks are sometimes considered one of the more complicated aspects of search engine optimization. But they are also regarded by many marketing experts as the most influential component of SEO when it comes to ranking highly on Google. Backlinks are, in short, one website linking to another website. Think of them like votes - the more backlinks you have linking to your website from other relevant websites, the higher Google will rank your website. 

This is because backlinks speak to your website’s popularity, credibility, and overall quality. That being said, different types of backlinks are considered more or less credible than others. But what they all have in common is that they are spreading awareness and visibility of your website across the internet.  

Social backlinks are probably the most common backlinks and easiest to obtain. Websites like Yelp, FourSquare, or niche-specific sites like Vitals or WebMD for doctors allow you to create backlinks to your business’s site. You can also add links from your social media profiles like Linkedin, Twitter, or Facebook. By adding your business to these social sites, you are not only providing your website with a backlink, but helping your SEO strategy by improving your citation visibility. Another great way to generate backlinks is contacting websites that mention your practice and simply asking them to add a link back to your site if there isn’t yet one. 

Overwhelmed? Don’t be! We’re here to help. 

Whether or not you plan on building an SEO strategy yourself, it’s a good idea to familiarize yourself with the purposes of SEO and its different components. It’s normal to feel a little lost when introduced to all these new concepts, but have no fear because, in addition to free resources available online, Doukas Media offers SEO services for business owners like you who are looking to optimize their website’s performance. 

Are you interested in building an SEO campaign to improve your website traffic and visibility? Have you already worked on optimizing your website but you’re not seeing the results you hoped for? Whatever your case, we are here to guide you through the process, and help you achieve the numbers-driven results that you should expect from an effective SEO strategy. 

Learn more about the services offered by Doukas Media here.